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Home > Electronic Reading Room > Document Collections > Commission Documents > Commission Meetings, Slides, Transcripts, Meeting SRMs, and Full Written Explanation for Closed Meetings > 1997
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05/13/1997
1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
***
BRIEFING BY NATIONAL AND WYOMING
MINING ASSOCIATIONS
***
PUBLIC MEETING
***
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Commission Hearing Room
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
Tuesday, May 13, 1997
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
notice, at 2:04 p.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission
KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission
GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission
NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission
. 2
STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
JOHN C. HOYLE, Secretary
KAREN D. CYR, General Counsel
RICHARD LAWSON, NMA
CREW SCHMITT, Uranium Producers of America
WILLIAM KEARNEY, Power Resources
JOHN HAMRICK, UMETCO
RICHARD ZIEGLER, Cotter Corporation
ANTHONY THOMPSON, Shaw, Pittman, Potts &
Trowbridge
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P R O C E E D I N G S
[10:00 a.m.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, good afternoon, ladies
and gentlemen. I apologize for my tardiness. We were doing
an emergency exercise, which we do periodically.
Today, representatives of the National Mining
Association, the Wyoming Mining Association and the Uranium
Producers of America have requested an opportunity to brief
the Commission concerning the current status of the industry
and issues of concern to uranium recovery licensees. We are
looking forward to hearing today's presentation from these
representatives of the uranium recovery industry. I
understand that copies of your presentation material are
available at the entrances to the room and so, unless my
fellow commissioners have any comments to add, Mr. Lawson,
would you please begin?
MR. LAWSON: Thank you very much, Chairman.
May we start out with introductions from our side
who are present, please?
MR. HAMRICK: I would like to introduce myself. I
am John Hamrick, Manager of Health Safety and Environmental
Affairs for UMETCO Minerals Corporation and also the
Environment Subcommittee Chairman of the Uranium Policy
Counsel of the National Mining Association.
UMETCO currently holds three licenses, actually a
. 4
few more than that including gauge licenses. But we have
the Maybell Title 2 facility, we have the Gas Hills facility
which is regulated by the NRC. Maybell and our other
facility, Uravan, in Colorado, are agreement state licenses.
MR. ZIEGLER: My name is Rich Ziegler. I am with
Cotter Corporation. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of
Commonwealth Edison out of Chicago. We have a license with
the state of Colorado. We are an agreement state and are
responsible in the end to the NRC.
Thank you.
MR. THOMPSON: My name is Anthony Thompson. I am
the outside counsel to the National Mining Association's
Environmental Subcommittee.
MR. SCHMITT: My name is Crew Schmitt. I am
President and CEO of Power Resources and also President of
the Uranium Producers of America. I also represent GMX
Minerals. Power Resources projects are located in Wyoming.
We have the in situ leach project at Highland. We are
currently in the process of applying for a license for Gas
Hills operations and through GMS Minerals we have the Crow
Butte operation in Crawford, Nebraska.
Thank you.
MR. KEARNEY: Good afternoon. I am Bill Kearney
with Power Resources located at the Highland Uranium Project
and I am also representing the Wyoming Mining Association
. 5
today.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are there any others?
MR. LAWSON: Yes, we have some other licensees in
the audience.
MR. KRAFT: Yes, my name is Fred Kraft. I am
representing U.S. Energy, which has a license with Green
Mountain Mining Venture out of Red Desert in Wyoming and at
the Sweet Water Conventional Mill, Plateau Resources at the
Shootaring Canyon Mill and Yellowstone Fuels, which is an
ISL.
MR. INDALL: My name is John Indall. I am an
attorney from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I am General Counsel
for Uranium Producers of America.
MS. REHMANN: My name is Michelle Rehmann. I am
Environmental Manager for International Uranium Corporation.
We took possession of a license on Friday for the White Mesa
Mill near Blanding, Utah.
MR. POYSER: I am Bob Poyser. I represent Cogema
and specifically representing Pathfinder Mines Corporation
and Cogema Mining, Inc., which have together seven licenses.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
We won't introduce ourselves -- oh, we still have
more. Please.
MR. PAULSON: My name is Oscar Paulson. I am
facilities supervisor for the Sweetwater Uranium Project
. 6
near Rollins, Wyoming, and I am here representing Kennecott
Uranium Company.
Thank you.
MS. SWEENY: I am Katie Sweeney, Associate General
Counsel for the National Mining Association.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We aren't going to introduce
ourselves. Hopefully we know who we are.
MR. LAWSON: All right.
Well, thank you for the time today for us to
present ourselves.
The National Mining Association was actually
formed in 1995 by the merger of the National Coal
Association, an organization of about 65 years old, and the
American Mining Congress, an organization about 75 years
old. We represent coal and hard-rock producers, the
manufacturers and support agencies that support them. Also,
all of the State associations in the country representing
the mining industry are members.
We are presently mining in 50 States. Indeed,
from a political standpoint, we're mining in 397 of the 435
districts of the United States. Last year the American
economy used 40,000 pounds of metals and minerals per
person, plus an additional 7,000 pounds of coal to provide
electricity, and approximately a half-pound of uranium to
provide electricity. We produced 57 percent of the
. 7
electricity with coal and about 21.6 percent of the
electricity used by the Nation with uranium. About 30
percent of the gross national product results from this
activity.
We're involved in Federal and international
activities in both regulative, legislative, public
relations, and educational projects. We have dealings with
DOI, DOL, Commerce, State, DOE, and several regulatory
bodies. In addition we've become recently extraordinarily
involved in a number of international forums that are
beginning to enter into the activities of the mining
industry of the United States, the United Nations, various
international labor, health, and safety groups, trade, and
market mechanisms.
Among our member mineral processing companies are
12 uranium recovery licensees. These uranium recovery
licensees are represented by the Uranium Policy Council and
the Uranium Environmental Subcommittee within the
organization.
Mr. John Hamrick, the chairman of the Uranium
Environmental Subcommittee, will now provide you with a
brief history of the activities of these NMA committees.
MR. HAMRICK: Thank you, General Lawson.
I'd like to touch a little bit on our purpose for
being here today, which is to give you an update on the
. 8
status of uranium recovery operations, and in doing so our
intention is to present and discuss perhaps some of the
issues that the licensees see as being perhaps burning ones
at this time, and in addition later we're going to extend an
invitation to the Commissioners to either individually or in
groups, whatever may be appropriate, to visit some of our
facilities, because some of them are quite large and it's a
little bit difficult sitting here around a table to get a
true feeling for the magnitude and the different issues that
face those facilities. We also are hopeful that we're
opening a dialogue here with the Commissioners and we would
like to be able to continue that dialogue.
With that I'd like to say just a few words about
this organization that General Lawson has certainly covered,
the National Mining Association, which is essentially a
national organization covering multiple sectors of the
mining industry, the Uranium Producers of America, which is
also a national association, but with the express coverage
of the uranium sector, and then the Wyoming Mining
Association, which is again a State association that
represents multiple sectors in the minerals industry, with a
large proportion of uranium producers being members of that
organization.
With that we'll kind of go to the slides here. I
would like to say just a couple, a few other points about
. 9
the Uranium Policy Council and the Environmental
Subcommittee, that the Uranium Policy Council is the
supervisory or administrative body for the Environmental
Subcommittee. The UES is the technical or regulatory-
affairs arm of the policy council. We do represent NMA
members on a full range of regulatory, legislative, and
litigation issues. Including as members of the American
Mining Congress, eventually the National Mining Association,
we participated in the NRC GEIS rulemaking process and
various EPA rulemakings. We also were instrumental in
helping rescind subpart T -- 40 CFR, part 60, subpart T --
the radon rules for inactive tailings. We've also commented
and provided input to staff on various branch technical
position papers and alternate concentration limit issues.
The membership is composed of four general
sectors, and those are the, if I skip around a little bit,
the producers, who are composed of conventional mills, those
that are operational have operating licenses, those that are
on standby and desire to become operational, the uranium in
situ operators who continue to produce uranium today. In
addition we have the licensees that are endeavoring to get
to license termination, and so are heavily involved in the
remediation process, and then we also have producers of
uranium as by-products or co-products of other processes.
The location of the uranium recovery licensees tends to be
. 10
clustered around where the ore deposits are, which are
mainly in the West in Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, New
Mexico, Texas, and Utah.
To give you an idea of the number of facilities
that we're talking about here on this slide we have listed
19 in situ leach facilities that tend to be clustered in
Wyoming and Texas with a couple in New Mexico, and the
conventional mine and mill facilities are also mainly
clustered in Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. What
is not shown on here for the Colorado area is the numerous
small mines that supported those mills when they were
operating.
I would like to say a few words about our
perspective on our relationship with NRC staff, and we think
that we have an excellent working relationship with staff,
and we try to provide them with comments, and they have
tended to be very responsive when they have responded to us
in the materials they've given us. There's not always been
general agreement among us about what needs to be done or
perhaps things can be done, but I think that's to be
expected, and that is part of the reason we're here today,
is because we think that there are policy issues out there
that can be and need to be addressed by the Commission, that
their appropriate resolution lies at that level. So that's
part of our purpose.
. 11
With that, I'll turn the presentation over to Crew
Schmitt. He introduced himself earlier, but he'll be
talking about the Uranium Producers of America and some of
the economics of the industry.
MR. SCHMITT: Thank you, John.
It was a pleasure to have this opportunity to
participate in this briefing of the Commission on the
current status of the uranium recovery industry.
As John said, the Uranium Producers of America is
the national organization representing companies with
production centers in half a dozen States, Western States
primarily. As licensees we have ongoing communication and
interaction with the NRC staff.
There are several key issues facing our industry
at this time. Those relating to regulation will be dealt
with in the latter part of the presentation. It might be
helpful for your understanding though to set the stage with
a little historical background and update on the current
status and some thoughts about the future relating to our
industry.
As you know, the uranium industry was born as a
weapons program. Later it was expected to supply the Atoms
for Peace program, promising electricity too cheap to meter
in hundreds of nuclear powerplants. Finally today we've
reached a point of relative stabilization where uranium
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requirements are expected to grow at a much more modest
rate, on the order of 1 percent per year.
Although stable growth, this is certainly not the
expectations we had in the seventies, when there were high
expectations for nuclear. The annual uranium production in
the United States exceeded 40 million pounds per year. This
slide that we see overhead right now reflects the employment
at its peak. At that time 40 million pounds represented in
excess of 20,000 jobs. Today actual production is closer to
6 million pounds, and today the industry is closer to 1,000
jobs.
In yesteryear, a producer's competitor was over
the next hill. Today, primary uranium producers'
competition is Government stockpiles built up over a 50-
year cold war era. The slide that is now up, this slide
shows the price over the last 10 years reflecting the impact
these inventories have had on the market. You can see there
is significant volatility as there has been different
perceptions of this material coming into the marketplace.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Now this comparing -- that's
the Commonwealth of Independent States? I mean, what is the
CIS price?
MR. HAMRICK: CIS is the Commonwealth of
Independent States. The other represents material that is
outside of the Commonwealth.
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Integration of nuclear weapons materials into the
commercial market is essential in removing the nuclear
threat. The Uranium Producers of America wholeheartedly
support this integration. To that end we have worked
aggressively with other stakeholders to establish a rational
disposition of these materials. Agreements between the
United States and the former Soviet governments and
legislated schedules established with USEC Privatization Act
represent a rational disposition of these materials. These
disposition schedules allow primary production and
Government stockpiles to enter the commercial market without
significant disruption.
To be competitive today the United States uranium
industry, the group that is here today discussing with you,
has had to adapt. As you know from the previous slide, and
we're talking in excess of 20,000 jobs down to something on
the order of 1,000 today, it's been a significant
adaptation. This adaptation is to competition from the
Government stockpiles. It's also adapting to compete with
higher-grade deposits outside of the United States. As a
result, today the United States uranium industry is
comprised of in situ leach production centers. These will
be described in detail a little later. For us to be
competitive in the future in the U.S. uranium industry, we
must have technological innovation in order to be able to
. 14
compete in cost, and we must be extremely flexible to take
advantage of market opportunities. As you saw from the
slide, prices are all over the map at this point in time
with the perception of the stockpiles.
This innovation must be in the technical and in
the regulatory arenas. This does not necessarily mean
compromise of principles on either side. Rather it simply
means that much as many industries have had to seek unique
solutions to their competition, we have to forge new ways of
working together if our industry is to survive. I am
confident that we can find solutions necessary to preserve
the primary uranium recovery industry and maintain the
mandate of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to
our industry.
I look forward to working with the NRC in seeking
these unique solutions. Thank you for your attention, and
I'm going to pass this on to Bill Kearney, chairman of the
Wyoming Mining Association Uranium Committee.
Bill.
MR. KEARNEY: Thank you.
On behalf of the Wyoming Mining Association, I'd
like to thank the Commissioners and others for taking the
time to meet with us today. The Wyoming Mining Association,
also known as WMA, is an industry association that
represents bentonite, gold, coal, trona, and uranium
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companies and mining associates such as vendors and
suppliers and contractors in Wyoming. Wyoming leads the
Nation in the production of bentonite, coal, soda ash,
produced from trona, and uranium. The membership consists
of 35 mining companies, 120 supply companies, and 5
electrical utilities.
The next slide shows the uranium projects in
Wyoming. They are located in the historic uranium mining
districts in the central and northeastern portions of the
State. You can see where Casper, one of two major cities in
Wyoming, is located.
Uranium was first produced in Wyoming in 1947.
Production peaked at about 12 million pounds per year in
1980 when the work force numbered over 5,000 people.
Production in 1997 is expected to approach 3 million pounds,
and this production will be about 50 percent of the uranium
produced in the United States. So, as you can see, this is
an important commodity to the State of Wyoming to the
economy.
Projections indicate that the production could be
as much as 9 million pounds by the year 2000. If you look
back at the projects in Wyoming, a quick summary of that
shows that there's three operating in situ sites, one in
situ site that's about ready to go into production anytime,
several proposed in situ projects, several reclamation
. 16
projects at conventional mills, and two proposed
conventional mines.
At this point we're going to change gears a little
bit by providing a brief overview of the types of uranium
operations licensed by the NRC. These include in situ
leaching, uranium mill tailings reclamation, and
conventional milling, including standby status. Rich
Ziegler is going to cover the last two types of operations,
and I'm going to give a quick overview of the in situ mining
process.
If you look at the screen, it's probably different
than your book, but the orebody definition by drilling
should be the first thing. You need to go out and find
where the uranium is first. A lot of drilling goes into
delineating where the ore body is. After it's located,
geophysical logging's completed, the well fields are laid
out, and wells are installed. After the wells are
installed, the production operations begin, injection and
recovery of fluids, ion exchange, and then the precipitation
of yellowcake and the packaging. Some by-product materials
are dealt with and wastewater is disposed through deep well
injection, evaporation, land application, and discharge
under NPDES permits. The final step of the process is
groundwater restoration and surface reclamation and
decommissioning.
. 17
The next slide depicts and idealized in situ mine.
The uranium lies in sandstone aquifers anywhere from a
couple hundred feet underground to upwards of 1,000 feet in
Wyoming, and wells -- injection and production wells -- are
drilled into the ore body to aid in the extraction of the
mineral, and monitor wells are installed in zones adjacent
to it and usually above and below it.
The next slide has a little more detail of a row-
front uranium deposit, which is the type of deposit
typically in situ mined. It shows injection wells on the
outside with a production well in the middle. Basically the
process is nothing more than a large plumbing project where
native groundwater that's in the ground is circulated,
typically gaseous oxygen and CO2 are added to this solution
which dissolves the uranium out of the rock, typically a
tenth of a percent uranium by weight. It's pumped to the
surface and run through an ion-exchange column. Where,
similar to your home water softener, the uranium is taken
out and loaded on a resin. From there, it is eluted and
processed into the final product, which is yellow cake.
Then the next slide shows, to give you an idea of
what some of the facilities look like, well field
construction. These are when the wells are being put in,
minimal environmental disturbance. The second aerial shot
there shows an operating well field at the Highland Uranium
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Project. The little houses are header houses where the flow
from the wells is collected.
The satellite plant shows the ion exchange columns
where the resin where the uranium is taken out of the
groundwater before it is refortified with oxygen and carbon
dioxide and reinjected into the ground.
The main plant site is where the uranium is
processed into the final product, yellow cake in the drum.
And then land application is just intended to show you what
the irrigation facilities look like where one of the common
practices is to irrigate your treated wastewater.
With that, I will turn it over to Rich Ziegler who
will cover the steps in conventional milling operations.
MR. ZIEGLER: Thank you, Bill.
I want to make sure that you, the Commission,
understands that we are the real miners. We are the
conventional miners.
[Laughter.]
MR. ZIEGLER: Today we will talk about the
conventional. There are a few of us left. As you are --
the brochure here indicates, the first one we would like to
discuss is the Sweetwater mill, it is up in Sweetwater,
Wyoming. Ours is located in Canyon City and there is one in
Blanding and Tikaboo.
But it is a typical, conventional mill. It has
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the same principles as all conventional mills, a grinding
area, a leaching, a thickener or autoclave system which, in
turn, goes to a solvent extraction. For your information,
those buildings that you are looking at on your right are
what I am talking about, the grinding, leaching, thickener,
solvent extraction. And then we go into a precip, yellow
cake, and that is where it is produced. The residue goes
into the tailings impoundment. All of the conventional
mills are basically the same as that, as the next page
indicates.
The reclamation process, there are several steps
into it. We have to do the dewatering, continuous
dewatering. The leveling, which allows us to apply a radon
barrier, settlement, the radon barrier construction which
entails the erosion protection which is in a variety of
methods or forms, either through rocks on the side,
mulching, top-soiling, whatever it is, that is -- and then
final, what we are doing at our mill in Canyon City, the
final portion of it is the final groundwater cleanup. That
entails ACLs and limitations, deep well injection water and
things of that sort.
So that is pretty much on the conventional.
The one that you see now is a facility of the
UMETCO area at Gas Hills and in the top portion, this site
actually represents about 1200 acres. At the top, you can
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see the above grade reclamation area. In the middle portion
is the heat leach that is covered. Both of those are
covered now. And currently what UMETCO is doing is
processing grade and the below grade, I believe.
MR. HAMRICK: Stabilizing materials or bringing
materials in there, in addition to doing s other things.
MR. ZIEGLER: But that's pretty much what the
conventional -- with that, I would like to turn it over to
Mr. Tony Thompson, who is going to discuss regulatory
issues.
MR. THOMPSON: Good afternoon.
I am going to just touch on some regulatory issues
that the uranium recovery licensees think are of some
importance. NRC recently undertook its strategic assessment
rebaselining initiative and in the context of that kind of
an approach to things, the uranium recovery licensees, in
their comments to NRC, suggested that since there were a lot
of issues on the uranium recovery side of the house that had
been addressed over time when they came up rather than as
part of a sort of strategic consideration, that it might be
time to consider some of these decisions and how they were
posing potential problems for uranium recovery licensees in
some sort of coherent, strategic fashion.
One of the concepts that we have been discussing
amongst the uranium recovery licensees are to prepare a
. 21
white paper to present to the Commission some of these
issues and their views on the issues with a view to,
perhaps, having the Commission take a fresh look at these
from a sort of strategic overview position.
The issues that I am just going to touch on today
are the issue of NRC jurisdiction over ISL well fields,
NRC's Uranium Recovery Branch effluent disposal guidance,
NRC's non-11e(2) disposal policy and the issue of concurrent
jurisdiction. Concurrent jurisdiction being concurrent
jurisdiction by non-agreement states over the
nonradiological components of 11e(2) byproduct material.
NRC asserted jurisdiction over ISL well fields
back around 1980 based on a memorandum from the legal
section at NRC. It has led to some duplicative regulatory
oversight between and among NRC, EPA and non-agreement
states. Traditionally, under the Atomic Energy Act, the AEC
and later NRC have not regulated uranium mining until the
source material is removed from its place in nature. That
is certainly so with respect to underground uranium mines
and surface uranium mines which really aren't regulated
until the source material reaches the mill site. However,
in the context of ISL operations, the material is regulated
underground before it gets to the surface and before it
achieves the .05 percent concentrations of licensable source
material.
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Basically, the assumption here was that processing
the ISL leaching process underground is essentially the same
as the process of processing the ore on the surface in a
conventional mill. Now, that has posed some problems for us
when we look at the issues associated with staff guidance on
effluent disposal. And, also, with the non-11e(2) policy as
I will indicate.
Process waste from ISL operations are treated as
11e(2) byproduct material but the wastes from restoring the
ore body, that is the underground ore body, are treated as
mine waste and therefore are not 11e(2) byproduct material.
So the surface sludges that are created by the
process wastewater and the surface sludges created by the
restoration wastewater are, although the same thing, in fact
treated differently. And part of that is, I guess, because
deciding that -- and here is where some of the illogic comes
in -- that processing the underground ore body in the ISL
context, the contaminants that are built up in the ore body
are not 11e(2) byproduct material. So when you are
restoring it, it is mine waste. Whereas, the contaminants
that build up in the ground, leaching from a mill tailings
facility, are 11e(2) byproduct material.
So we have a situation where frequently at ISL
facilities, for example, restoration fluids and process
fluids go into the same radium, barium settlement ponds and
. 23
therefore there is a mixture of sludges which is 11e(2) and
non-11e(2) or norm, which is not subject to Atomic Energy
Act jurisdiction. So we have some potential conflicts here
that make the, as we will see when we go to look at the non-
11e(2) disposal policy, they make both the operators of the
conventional facilities and the ISL operators nervous.
Under criterion two in 10 CFR Part 40, Appendix A,
the wastes from the 11e(2) byproduct material from ISL
operations is supposed to go to and be disposed of in
uranium tailings facilities. There was a concern with the
non-11e(2) byproduct material policy that if things that
weren't 11e(2) were put into mill tailings impoundments that
DOE might balk at taking title or states or EPA or others
might assert jurisdiction over those facilities. And what
we have seen now is that some of the wastes that have come
from ISL operations are clearly under the definitions we
have now mine waste norm and not 11e(2) byproduct material
and they are already in the mill tailings facilities.
So it concerns the operators of the ISL facility
because they want to have someplace to send their waste. It
concerns the operators of the conventional facilities
because they don't want to have anything interfere with
their ability to terminate their licenses.
Finally, all of these issues, we think, are likely
to be compounded by the concurrent jurisdiction issue.
. 24
Recognizing that NRC, of course, traditionally, and AEC
before it has preempted on health and safety issues
associated with radiation. However, in the Mill Tailings
Act amendments to the Atomic Energy Act, Congress explicitly
directed EPA and NRC to regulate both the radiological and
nonradiological components of 11e(2) byproduct material
produced by uranium recovery operations.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me make sure I understand.
Have there been problems to date or are you
anticipating problems?
MR. THOMPSON: There have been some problems to
date and basically what has happened is that particularly
with respect to groundwater where you may be able to say,
well, we see a nonradioactive contaminant like sulfates,
even a nonhazardous contaminant, that is moving from the
groundwater that was as a result of production operations at
a conventional facility, with the non-agreement state having
concurrent jurisdiction over that, there is concern that NRC
may not want to terminate a license if we comply with NRC
requirements but the agreement state isn't satisfied.
Secondly, there have been indications from several
agreement states -- non-agreement states, excuse me, that
because the cover on the tailings facility is also there to
inhibit infiltration which would impact groundwater
contamination over the 200 to 1000 year time frame, that
. 25
they are entitled to look at the surface stabilization plans
of the facilities as well. And basically the concern here
is that we are going to get into a dilemma where we can't
make a decision where we have a situation where the NRC
says, and in fact the NRC says maybe we can't terminate this
license even though you have complied with our regulatory
requirements because we don't want to turn over a site to
DOE where DOE has a concern that a state may be asserting
some claim of jurisdiction.
We believe that there is -- it was even in the NRC
legal memorandum in 1980 considered a close question. We
believe that the answer is better that there is preemption
on the part of NRC.
It raises some questions about the viability of
the agreement state program if, indeed, non-agreement
states, without making these commitments, can insert
themselves into these regulatory decisions and it certainly
is going to increase the difficulty in closing sites. Some
of the more controversial sites, some of them in Utah, that
are getting a fair amount of publicity now, there may be
problems trying to go to final closure.
Those are some of the important issues that we
think may well be worth taking a fresh look at, not just
looking at the decisions as they were made at the time.
But looking at where we are now and where things are now as
. 26
part of a strategic overview.
The last issue I was just going to mention is that
we had -- I say "we," the uranium recovery industry had
requested that the Commission modify its proposal on the
draft decommissioning and decontamination standards to
include not just uranium mill tailings but uranium recovery
facilities because they were comprehensively regulated. And
if, as we hoped, that rule is final, we appreciate the fact
that the Commission and the staff at the Commission listened
to our concerns and we are always appreciative of that.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No, I have no questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: I would like to go back to
the statement that you made, to be sure I understand it,
about the concurrent jurisdiction raising questions about
the validity and viability of the agreement state program.
If I see if I understand what you are trying to say here, in
an agreement state, obviously, it would have total
responsibility for both the radiological and nonradiological
and are you saying that, in effect, it would never get in
conflict with itself?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay, but the requirements
. 27
that it might have for the nonradiological could be the same
as in a nonagreement state and still hold up the termination
of a license, would it not? I am not sure I see where it
really undermines the validity and viability of the
agreement state.
MR. THOMPSON: Well, I guess it is just that the
agreement states take on the responsibility for addressing
the whole range of issues and their standards to some
greater or lesser extent are the same as NRC's. And
ultimate sign-off on the sight is by NRC to approve of the
agreement state license termination for transfer to DOE. We
have a concern that, for example, a non-agreement state who
declines to take title to the facility, wants it to go to
DOE, could be in a position of after NRC signs off on the
license, regulating that facility. Whereas, presumably, an
agreement state is looking at the program, is part of the
NRC program, part of the UMTRCA program, all the way across
the board. And while those kinds of regulatory issues do
come up, it suggests that if an agreement -- a non-agreement
state can come in and review your stabilization plan and
inhibit the NRC from terminating a license, that -- if you
have a dispute with your agreement state about license
termination, that is between you and your regulator. But
you are not dealing with your regulator, you are dealing
with a third party that is sticking their nose into it, in a
. 28
sense.
MR. HAMRICK: And I think the point of it is
essentially under those terms, Tony, that the non-agreement
state then essentially is given the same authority as an
agreement state in terms of license termination. That is
where we see that the issue comes in, where the challenge,
kind of, to the program is.
MR. THOMPSON: And on the preemption issue,
traditionally at least, and certainly it has been applied
primarily to the radiation protection context, the
legislative history and all of the case law and everything
say it is going to be one of two entities they are going to
regulate, either an agreement state or the NRC and not a
third entity.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So your specific recommendation
in the case involving non-agreement states then is?
MR. THOMPSON: The recommendation is to reconsider
the opinion or the guidance and suggest that in the case of
uranium recovery licensees under the Mill Tailings Act the
NRC does preempt because it is explicitly given authority to
regulate the nonradiological constituents. It is the only
set of licensees under the whole NRC jurisdiction that are
given that authority by statute.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, so then let me make sure
I understand. So the recommendation is drawing on UMTRCA.
. 29
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You would like the NRC, the
Commission, to reconsider the issue of federal preemption?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, I just wanted to be sure
I understood.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: And again, this isn't
something that has happened but you perceive could happen.
Or has it happened?
MR. THOMPSON: It is happening.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It has happened?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Maybe if you could propagate
some examples to us, that would be helpful.
Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: It is really on the same
point. Are there any impediments on the statute? You
basically just answered that the statute would allow what
you believe the policy should be. Indeed, you have just
said that the statute would encourage us to regulate both
the radiological and nonradiological component?
MR. THOMPSON: It requires NRC and EPA to regulate
both the radiological and nonradiological and it creates a
. 30
new -- the statute creates a new type of byproduct material,
that being the 11e(2) byproduct material, which is the waste
from uranium.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: But once it says NRC and
EPA and EPA's agent, typically, on groundwater issues is the
state, and so it sounds like the statute may well set up
this multiple -- multiple regulation problem.
I am trying to figure out whether this is a policy
issue within our control to do something about or whether
you all really need to go and get the statute amended.
MR. THOMPSON: I think that we -- we are fairly
well convinced that the statute provides the authority, that
the statute was directed at a particular source term,
uranium mill tailings. It created a byproduct material that
is to be regulated explicitly under this statute. It
explicitly directs EPA to set generally applicable
environmental standards for radiological and nonradiological
hazards. NRC is to conform its standards to EPA's generally
applicable standards which NRC has done and therefore NRC
and EPA, under the Atomic Energy Act are directed to
regulate and to provide a level of protection that is
essentially equivalent to that provided for hazardous
constituents under RCRA. That is in the statute.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So why haven't the -- if
the statute is clear and a problem has arisen where a state
. 31
is exercising authority that you believe it may not have,
why hasn't -- has that been taken to a court?
MR. THOMPSON: It has not been taken to a court as
yet and that is certainly one possibility. Essentially, I
think we have been told that one way to address this is to
have this case taken to court.
One of the things we are considering is whether or
not bringing this along with some other issues to the
Commission for a fresh look might make more sense than some
licensee fighting it out in a particular court somewhere.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Anything else?
Well, do you have any final comments you wish to
make.
MR. HAMRICK: Yes, we do have a little wrap-up
here, Chairman Jackson, and we do appreciate, Chairman
Jackson and Commissioners, your time here today, and we
want -- we think that this can be very mutually beneficial,
an ongoing communication with the Commission similar to the
communication and communications that we've had with the
staff. We are in process, the National Mining Association
and our various groups of investigating further these
issues, and we would like perhaps the opportunity to present
the white paper to the Commission on the issues as we see
it.
In conjunction with that, if that's something the
. 32
Commission would entertain, we'd like to reiterate our
invitation to the Commissioners individually or in groups to
come out and see some of our facilities. It could be that
perhaps some Commission business may take you to Denver or
to Salt Lake City or something like that that may be an
opportunity to arrange visits out to some of our facilities,
and we would very much like to bring you out and show you
the facilities as they are on the ground, so to speak, with
the attendant issues and things that can be perceived
directly. And so we think that those things would kind of
proceed in parallel perhaps, you know, perhaps a visit at
some point, and perhaps if that was possible what we would
suggest is that Katie Sweeney of NMA perhaps get with your
staffs and talk schedule, if that's something that could
happen. One thing though, we would like to remind the
Commission that a lot of these sites are in this middle of
nowhere, and weather can be a consideration when you want to
visit.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Summer; summer.
MR. HAMRICK: June through August. Perhaps into
September.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: They can go in September.
MR. HAMRICK: Yes. I'm sure the Wyoming Mining
Association here could even, if called upon, could entertain
us with a few jokes about Wyoming weather, but we'll perhaps
. 33
leave that for the visit.
Maybe that's where, if you have no further
questions, that's perhaps where we can leave it. We do
appreciate your time, and if you have questions, we're more
than happy to respond with whatever we have, because these
are issues that we have spent a lot of time thinking about,
and dealing with in a practical manifestation out in the
field.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Yes, Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I ask one
question? When is the white paper going to be ready to
submit to the Commission? You said you've been working on
it for some time. When would that be available, because I
think it would be --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is it done?
MR. THOMPSON: No.
MR. HAMRICK: No, it's not done.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Because it would
actually be more useful in terms of some of these legal
issues to have the white paper than the briefing slots.
MR. HAMRICK: Perhaps the fall, early fall,
something like that is what we're looking at as far as --
MR. LAWSON: Let me just conclude then by saying
that until we meet again, I put a magazine at each of your
places, and I've entered your names on my circulation, so
. 34
you'll be seeing a little bit about the mining industry
every two months from now on.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, thank you. I think I'd
like to thank each of you collectively and individually from
the National Mining Association, Uranium Producers of
America, the Wyoming Mining Association, and the individual
licensee entities. It's been a very informative
presentation, and I'm sure the information will be of value.
I echo Commissioner McGaffigan's comments. In
fact, it was part of my closing remarks anyway, so to
invite -- that's sort of a form of Federal preemption --
invite you to submit the white paper to the Commission. The
more timely way you can submit it, the more apt it is to
weigh into any deliberations we have on these various
topics. I think it's important to lay out carefully what
you think the case is based on existing statutes for Federal
preemption by the NRC under UMTRCA, and how one gets at the
issue that Commissioner McGaffigan raised as to States being
EPA's agents with respect to the groundwater issue.
So, unless there are further comments, questions,
we're adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:56 p.m., the briefing was
concluded.]
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